Orlando Jones Says He Was Fired From ‘American Gods’ Because His Character Sent ‘The Wrong Message For Black America’

[Soul_Rattler]

Orlando Jones isn’t holding back regarding his split from his Starz show American Gods.

Taking to Twitter Saturday morning (December 14), the actor claims he was fired from the series’ third season, alleging new showrunner Charles Egleedecided his character Mr. Nancy sends “the wrong message for Black America.”

“I know y’all have LOTS of questions about the firing,” Jones prefaced in a tweet. “As always I promise to tell you the truth and nothing but [love].”



According to Jones, who was a large part of season 2’s writing and producing contributions after the departure of original showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green, he was fired back in September.

“There will be no more Mr. Nancy. Don’t let these m****rf*****s tell you they love Mr. Nancy. They don’t,” Jones says in the selfie video. “I’m not going to name names but the new season 3 showrunner [Eglee] is Connecticut born and Yale-educated, so he’s very smart and he thinks that Mr. Nancy’s angry, get s**t done, is the wrong message for Black America.

“That’s right,” he continues. “This white man sits in that decision-making chair and I’m sure he has many Black bffs who are his advisors and made it clear to him that if he did not get rid of that angry god, Mr. Nancy, he’d start a Denmark Vesey uprising in this country. I mean, what else could it be?”

Entertainment Weekly reached out to representatives for Starz, Fremantle, who produces American Gods, and Eglee, and according to the outlet, they have not received a comment.

In other tweets, Jones labeled Fremantle “a nightmare” that treated him “like a 2nd class citizen for doing your job [too] well.” He also claimed “they were exceptionally nasty and evil the way they did it.”

 

[Soul_Rattler]

 

[The Lonious Monk]

WTF? How do they just get rid of Mr. Nancy? I know they are taking license with the source material, but killing off characters who aren't supposed to be killed off is usually taboo isn't it?

I haven't seen the second season of this yet, but I'm guessing they must have taken some liberties with Nancy's character too. He wasn't an angry black man in the book.

 

[King Freeman]

Imma let this one play out.

 

[Black 🖤]

Never gave this show a chance, but the dialogue from that scene in that IG post has me interested.

 

[King Freeman]

Never gave this show a chance, but the dialogue from that scene in that IG post has me interested.

His scenes/monologues were dope but the show as a whole isn't on that wave.
Hella convoluted imo.

 

[konceptjones]

I have zero context here. Was his character crucial to the story or something?

 

[The Lonious Monk]

I have zero context here. Was his character crucial to the story or something?

I'm not really sure what they are doing in the show, but in the book he does make it to the end.

The author of American Gods actually wrote another book called Anansi's Boys about two sons of Anansi. It's better than American Gods in my opinion. It's less convoluted. I'm still not sure if the Anansi in Anansi's Boys is the same as Mr. Nancy though.

 

[SneakDZA]

I have zero context here. Was his character crucial to the story or something?

Yes. He even got his own spinoff book called Anansi Boys (I haven't read it yet though).

 

[IP360]

His character was one of the reasons why I watched the show.

Muthafucca be spot on wit his rants

 

[Whis Khalifa]

I just started watching season 1 last night... I'm enjoying it so far but I'm not gonna watch season 3 if they are doing fuck shit like this...

 

[Inori]

 

[Black 🖤]

His scenes/monologues were dope but the show as a whole isn't on that wave.
Hella convoluted imo.

So don't waste my time?

 

[Inori]

So don't waste my time?

IMO the first 2 seasons are worth checking. Mr. Nancy/Anansi definitely steals every scene he's in.

Shits disappointing he won't be in the third though.

 

[Black 🖤]

IMO the first 2 seasons are worth checking. Mr. Nancy/Anansi definitely steals every scene he's in.

Shits disappointing he won't be in the third though.

Ok. Ima give it a try. And it is on Netflix, right?

 

[Inori]

Ok. Ima give it a try. And it is on Netflix, right?

I dont believe so.. I been watching on gang/Cyberflix lol

 

[King Freeman]

So don't waste my time?

 

[KNiGHTS]

What's convoluted about the show? Ancient Gods are about to go to war with New Gods. Old gods rep nature and what man worshipped at the beginning whereas the new gods are created by what man has come to worship now.

With that being said, this is some whole ho shit. Orlando Jones killed that fucking role. Yes, anyone reading this should watch the show. No, it isn't a waste of time. The show as a whole is dope, but unless the counterpoint to this is Jones somehow came in the spot throwing bitchfits about his water not having enough ice, fucking old boy's wife, or pulling a pistol out then this is undermining the quality of the damn show. He and his character are integral parts of the show, so you can't exactly phase out a whole subplot of African gods creeping on a come up.

Starz stays delivering dope content and fucking it up. Word to Magic City.

 

[King Freeman]

What's convoluted about the show? Ancient Gods are about to go to war with New Gods. Old gods rep nature and what man worshipped at the beginning whereas the new gods are created by what man has come to worship now.

With that being said, this is some whole ho shit. Orlando Jones killed that fucking role. Yes, anyone reading this should watch the show. No, it isn't a waste of time. The show as a whole is dope, but unless the counterpoint to this is Jones somehow came in the spot throwing bitchfits about his water not having enough ice, fucking old boy's wife, or pulling a pistol out then this is undermining the quality of the damn show. He and his character are integral parts of the show, so you can't exactly phase out a whole subplot of African gods creeping on a come up.

Starz stays delivering dope content and fucking it up. Word to Magic City.

Shit was lukewarm to me.

:foh10:

 

[deadeye]

I dont know the full story and this is off topic but regarding Starz, they got dropped from their service provider and if by next June they dont get picked up the entire network will go under throwing many shows into jeopardy. That's partly why 50 Cent is fighting execs right now. Power was to get another season and a prequel. Now that's in the air. I dont even understand why Starz isn't winning. It's a great network imo.


Netflix makes it incredibly difficult to compete now. Starz should just seek financial banking to turn itself into it's own version of Netflix and go from there.

A lot of these networks are delusional because they're starting to believe they're gonna have the same success as Netflix and other streaming companies.


They're trying to blame everything on the cable companies for getting dropped...........when it's really not their fault at all.


What's happening is, they're asking the cable companies to pay exorbitant prices to carry their network........the cable companies refuse..........and then they try to get the viewers to call their cable company and ask them not to drop Starz.


All the while telling the viewers that they can just get the Starz App if they want to continue to have access to their content.


Basically, they're thinking that they're popular enough to cut out the cable company altogether and make more money if enough people subscribe to the app.


Problem is, they don't have enough content to justify people paying a monthly fee.


So this probably won't end well for them.


They'll see that they made a mistake.........beg the cable companies to take them back........and the cable companies get back at them by offering them far less than what they originally intended to pay to begin with.


Another case of dumb geniuses/smart idiots thinking they're smarter than they really are.


Nothing more than incompetent people in positions of power.